9781422280454

Genetically Modified Foods

▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼

Cultivating Cabbage

Long before the advent of GMO technology, humans were modifying wild crops and selectively breeding animals in order to create new varieties. This is how six common vegetables—kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and cabbage—all came to be. All are derived from a single plant, the Brassica oleracea , or wild cabbage. It is native to southern and western Europe and likes to grow on limestone around the Mediterranean coast. Over the centuries, humans selected wild cabbages with different characteristics, bred them, and created new vegetables in the process. Kale came from breeding those cabbages with large, curly leaves. Brussels sprouts were bred from the buds on the plant’s stem, and broccoli from the larger flowering buds at the top of the plant. These modifications are thought to be over 2,000 years old.

▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Wild cabbage is the ancient ancestor of quite a few veggies we eat today.

14